I’m with my wife visiting her family in Taipei, which I always love. Taipei is a vibrant and exciting city that makes the city-loving nerd in me very happy! There’s a lot of good urbanism here, some not-so-good, and since I’m now doing short videos I figured it would be fun to do some CONTENT while I’m here. I’ll collect them on this page for the non-TikTok/Insta folk among us (oldest videos first, I’ll add the most recent ones at the bottom).
A quick intro:
Ok so no joke I love dan bing:
Older parts of Taipei (like Dihua Street) give a wonderful example of how vibrant streets can be when they’re built around people, not cars:
Gogoro is a Taiwanese company that builds electric scooters and offers a battery-as-a-service subcription service with swappable batteries. You see these battery racks all around the city!
The Taipei metro (MRT) is great, and I started noticing last time how many stops there were that went directly to parks and to public schools. It’s really inspiring, but also highlights how far behind Canada has fallen. Isn’t it kinda nuts that there isn’t Skytrain to Stanley Park and UBC?
My long-suffering wife experienced dangerous levels of cringe helping me make this one. But the early start to Christmas in Taiwan is a serious issue that demands comment.
So no joke–I love Taiwanese sandwiches. They might not be what first comes to mind when you think of “Taiwanese food”, but they’re delicious!
This was one of my favourite videos to make: I rode the Taipei metro red line from one end to the other, from Xinyi to Tamsui!
A quick one I did in Taoyuan, highlighting some of the good and not-so-good of Taiwanese urbanism:
We made a brief hop over to Tokyo and uh the sights were interesting:
I really love Tokyo. Despite its size, it is full of quiet, pedestrian-friendly streets. I think a big part of that is a fundamental recognition that car-oriented places and people-oriented places are not the same thing. I wish Vancouver recognized that, instead pretty much every place is just a car-oriented space:
The main reason for our visit to Tokyo was to go to Disneyland, and even that has something to teach Vancouver about good urbanism:
Back in Taipei, I took the bus to visit the National Palace Museum. Taipei buses are very easy to use–Google Maps makes it easy to know which bus to take!
The elevator buttons in Taiwan sometimes take me a moment to figure out. Is it just me, or are are they laid out differently there?
Xiaoluren, the little green walk guy in Taipei, is awesome and I love his animation:
Taiwan is full of interesting foods and drinks that we don’t get (or at least aren’t common) here in Vancouver. Including…asparagus juice?!
Convenience store culture in Taiwan is really something to behold. They’re everywhere. And they’re better than they are here, too: they have more food, more seating, more services…
The bus lane situation in Vancouver is pretty dire. The few we do have are poorly implemented (generally, we don’t do full dedicated lanes, just portions around some stops and intersections). The center-lane bus lanes on major Taipei roads are great and keep buses moving quickly even during rush hour:
I tried to get a Labubu but only partially succeeded:
I really love Taiwan’s night markets. Each one is different–a real example of the sort of thriving urban life that can emerge when its allowed to:
One of the things that really jumps out to me in Taipei is how narrow many of the buildings are. I’m a big believer that small lot development is key to support both a healthy housing system and a thriving local business scene. Vancouver should embrace small lot development opportunities instead of forcing land assemblies and compelling larger developments!
…and that’s it! It was a lot of fun making these while I was there. I love visiting Taiwan. Taipei is a great city and I’m very grateful to have been able to visit it several times now.
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